Clean Slate
Olive Hunt Book 1
Briana Labuskes
Thomas & Mercer
August 2026
Clean Slate by Briana Labuskes is a psychological thriller about a crime scene cleaner trailing a serial killer.
Readers meet Olive Hunt, a crime scene cleaner who, for nearly ten years, channels her childhood traumas into erasing the suffering of others. She doesn’t investigate crimes for a living but cleans up after them. Every reminder of violence is part of her daily routine. Her experience of restoring horrific crime scenes has given her an uncanny ability to recognize when something isn’t quite right. This allows her to notice details others overlook.
When Olive notices unsettling similarities among three crime scenes, she no longer dismisses her instincts. She realizes the three murders she has cleaned up are related. Olive knows what the police refuse to see; these aren’t suicides. They’re murders staged to perfection where the killer is leaving her breadcrumb clues. The killer knows she’ll clean up after him and wants her to follow his clues.
She lives with contamination OCD, inherited from her mother, who abused her. These compulsions shape nearly every part of her life forcing her to shower multiple times a day and scrub her hands until they are raw.
It was a different take on a murder mystery. The story shows the challenges she faces and the resilience she has developed. Although involving the police, the story becomes interesting in her doggedness to figure out what’s really happening and who she needs to protect.
Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?
Briana Labuskes: I wanted a slice into crime solving that wasn’t a detective. I just kind of wanted a unique angle. I saw this movie, Sunshine Cleaning with Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, who were sisters who started their own crime scene cleaning business. It focused on the emotional side. It was very uplifting and that occupation always stuck with me. I always thought there were so many cool opportunities to delve into those skills. I thought, that’d be so cool as a mystery, an amateur sleuth, who doesn’t have to follow the rules of the police. I thought that would be a fun aspect of it.
EC: How did you do the research about crime scene cleaning?
BL: There’s been a lot of profiles of them over the years. My idea came after that movie. But then there was also this book called Mop Men by Alan Emmins. It followed one of these crime scene cleaners, essentially through about a couple weeks of going to the scenes and all sorts of things. I got a look of what they had to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and what kind of person would be doing this job. There’s also a documentary on Amazon. It only lasted three episodes and I can kind of see why because it was very gory. But those three episodes are helpful, to give an authenticity of what jobs they were taking. For example, I didn’t even think about it, but sidewalks get bloody after drive-by shootings. Things like that, they get called out to clean those up, or even like car crashes and things like that. The police will contract with them and have them come out. And so just lining up all those little details was helpful. And then I also looked at cleaning blogs because I wanted to see just what gets blood out of carpet with tons of tips out there for just people who have house messes.
EC: How would you describe Olive, the crime scene cleaner?
BL: I think she’s quirky, funny, self-deprecating, and strong. She had a tough childhood. She grew up with a mom who had contamination OCD, and that really shaped a lot of who she was, mostly because she’s scared of getting this as well, because it could be genetic. Also, she went through this childhood where she knew her mom was abusing her out of willfulness. It was just she was trying to get her clean. She was trying to save her life in her own mind and constantly calling her dirty was traumatic. She wears funny t-shirts, which brings a moment of levity before she goes to these dark crime scenes. She really works hard to balance out her life. And she also went through a bunch of therapists who, I think helped her, where she kind of learned to understand herself better through that. That’s why she’s kind of a self-aware character as well.
EC: What about her friend, Leah?
BL: I so love Leah who is her best friend. And I really wanted to write that friendship because a lot of times in this genre, and I’ve done it before myself, women are pitted against each other just to create tension. She was kind of Olive’s savior throughout their whole childhood. They grew up together, and it’s just one of those, you know me better than I know myself. But at the same time, life complicates things. And so that was also fun to write.
EC: What about her grandmother?
BL: She is her support system in general. She lives with her grandmother. Olive is very aware of Nana’s flaws and her strengths and I think they all work well together. The support system, was one of the major themes of the book. That was why I made a focus on the community center as well.
EC: The mystery also involves how wealthy people have their own justice system?
BL: I always wanted to tell a story how lower income people get screwed over by wealthy corporations. And this felt the right moment to do it when all the mystery pieces started coming together. There are a bunch of people tied into the mystery, although, a lot of it is gray. I really love exploring that because I want readers to understand why people are making the decisions they’re making and sometimes, they’re just evil. And I love having the layers.
EC: Next book?
BL: Book two is going to be about the arrest of Olive’s mother for killing her father, or maybe that’s not really what happened. So that will be coming out next year. It is titled, Dirty Secrets. We’re trying to go with the messy theme here.
THANK YOU!!
